She struck and kept falling.

Fog. Of course it was fog. Time stretched as she fell through cold fog.

The dread words were out.

She hadn’t cried “Lavinia, my life is with you!” Instead, she had said the words she could never take back.

But she did take them back. She heard the cry of a gull and knew she had only another moment. She did take them back!

God damn it, God Fuck It as Lavinia, who she loved with all her heart, would say! You didn’t get only one chance. You fucked up and you made amends and you fucked up again but did a little better, then you made an even worse mess but you got to try again.

Home with your beloved is a place where it’s safe to disagree!

That nightmare scream filled her head as she declared those words and, with an almost audible click … the world changed.

She had declared it, like Charla Thorp declaring, You’re invading our home with your noise! And it was so.

Grey waves materialized horrifyingly close and rushed up to meet her. But strong arms and legs that she thought she’d lost forever wrapped around her like steel bands.

Lavinia, unable to hold Sally or fly after her, choosing to fall instead until Sally unsaid the words, pulled herself down faster than Sally could fall and came in at a steep angle to snatch Sally without jerking her to a stop that would have snapped her neck. She arced them both into a tight curve, slowing Sally’s fall with a pressure which pushed the breath from her.

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Iron grey water skimmed beneath with a whish of salt and a boom of breakers and then those things vanished into the mist as they surged through damp wet emptiness. Sally’s stomach dropped away.

Only when they burst from the fog into a shining world was Sally sure it really was Lavinia!

“I take it back!” Sally cried. “I didn’t mean it; I take it back!”

“Shush, shhh, it’s alright, it didn’t take,” Lavinia murmured, sweeping through bright morning skies. “You said ‘you’re not welcome in my home,’ yeah?”

“I did and I’m so sorry!”

“And then, while you were falling to your death, instead of shitting your pants, you unsaid it and changed the fucking world again?”

“I guess I did?” she tried the idea on. “Yes, I did! You get to argue and disagree, that’s part of what being safe at home is.”

A great green coastline unfolded before them. Ireland. Lavinia was flying in the right direction now, still looking thoughtful.

Sally begged, “Aren’t you pissed off at me? Don’t you want to kick my ass?”

“That cute perky little ass? Could think of other things I’d rather do to it.”

Lavinia was so damn laconic that Sally felt the familiar annoyance. But she had her miracle back. She buried her head in Lavinia’s breast and willed the annoyance away.

“You been obsessing about that ‘get out my house’ thing for days now, right?” Lavinia asked. “Specially strong yesterday?”

“Um, yes, yes, I was.” She felt her cheeks flush. They passed over a craggy beach and towards emerald hills.

“Makes sense now. That pressure yesterday, pulling me north of where we should go? It wasn’t the damn island pulling us, it was that obsession of yours pushing us. And just now, when the sunlight hit me and I got my mojo back, that obsession pushed us one hundred eighty degrees the fuck away from our home together.”

“Huh? How is the nightmare we’re heading for, how is that home?”

“Oh, well, um.” Sally was looking over Lavinia’s shoulder at the dwindling island, a glorious green crown, but she felt Lavinia’s embarrassed body language. Lavinia would surely have blushed if the sun had charged her up enough.

She looked at Lavinia and waited for the revelation.